A 40-year-old unvaccinated woman from Pennsylvania has died from measles complications, marking the state’s third measles death in 2026 and the third reported in the United States.
The woman, who lived in Jefferson County, died Saturday. Jefferson County is a rural area about 50 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. She reportedly had underlying health conditions, though the specific complications that led to her death have not been given.
Her death comes during Pennsylvania’s largest measles outbreak in decades. As of Friday, the state had recorded 676 cases across 37 of its 67 counties. The outbreak has led to 124 hospitalisations. Four of the 676 people with confirmed measles had been vaccinated against the disease.
Pennsylvania’s two earlier measles-related deaths this year involved infants and occurred in August. The first dose of measles vaccine is typically given to infants around 1 year old.
The state has become a major focus of a wider national resurgence of measles, a disease declared eliminated from the United States in 2000. The country is now experiencing its worst measles outbreak in 35 years.
As of September 10, 2026, the United States had reported 3,294 confirmed measles cases. Outbreak-associated cases account for 95% of that total, or 3,123 of 3,294 cases.
There have been 38 new outbreaks reported in 2026. Those outbreaks account for 1,748 measles cases. A further 1,375 cases are linked to outbreaks that began in 2025.
For the full year of 2025, the United States recorded 2,289 confirmed measles cases. The increase from that total to the 2026 count by September 10 illustrates the scale of the current outbreak.
It remains unclear whether the woman had recently travelled or had a known exposure to measles. The available information also does not establish whether Pennsylvania’s outbreak is concentrated in communities with low vaccination coverage or is spreading more broadly.
Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, and Republican President Donald Trump’s administration have clashed over details surrounding the state’s two previous measles deaths. The latest death adds an adult with underlying health conditions to the infants already killed during the outbreak.
The cases and deaths show how measles can threaten people through different routes: infants may be too young to receive their first vaccine dose, while unvaccinated adults can face serious illness, particularly when they have underlying health conditions. The disease’s return has reversed the position reached when measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000.
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